Text for the Week: Jesus’ Call to Repentance

Scripture: Matthew 4:12-17

¹² Now when Jesus heard that John had been arrested, he withdrew to Galilee. ¹³ He left Nazareth and made his home in Capernaum by the sea, in the territory of Zebulun and Naphtali, ¹⁴ so that what had been spoken through the prophet Isaiah might be fulfilled:

¹⁵ “Land of Zebulun, land of Naphtali,
    on the road by the sea, across the Jordan, Galilee of the gentiles—
¹⁶ the people who sat in darkness
    have seen a great light,
and for those who sat in the region and shadow of death
    light has dawned.”

¹⁷ From that time Jesus began to proclaim, “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven has come near.”

Questions

1. What does the quote from Isaiah mean, who are the people who have walked in darkness and what is this darkness?
2. What does it mean to repent?
3. What is the Kingdom of heaven and what does Jesus mean that it has “come near”?

Background

Related Scriptures: Mark 1:14–15; Luke 4:14–15

The prophecy in verses 15-16 is a paraphrase of Isaiah 8:23 & 9:1 but isn’t a quote and perhaps shows an early Christian reading of Isaiah.

It isn’t clear what is meant that Jesus “withdrew to Galilee” because that region was under Herod’s control and so did not offer Jesus protection. It seems likely that Matthew highlights this detail because it established that Jesus lived in both Zebulun (Nazareth) and Naphtali (Capernaum)

Galilee was not a gentile region when Jesus lived there rather Matthew is probably using it to highlight the inclusion of the gentiles in Jesus’ mission.

The phrase “the light has dawned” seems to be deliberately establishing a context for Jesus’ message of repentance and the kingdom of heaven.

Jesus’ message is an echo of John the Baptist’s message and now the northern part of Israel is hearing what John had proclaimed in the south.

When Jesus uses the phrase kingdom of heaven he means the reign of God, or as in the Lord’s prayer someone who is committed to living out “your will be done”.

Reflection

It is extremely easy to rush past 4:12-17 when reading the Matthew’s Gospel. This passage is proceeded by the temptation narrative and followed by Jesus calling his first disciples, making this short snippet about Jesus entering Capernaum mundane and forgettable by comparison. Yet, it is in this paragraph that Jesus introduces his ministry and establishes the theme for us to understand everything he does. John had been preaching a baptism of repentance in the southern part of Herod’s territory, but his arrest provides Jesus with the sign that it is time for him to take this message to the northern part of Judea. Matthew lays the foundation for this ministry with a paraphrase of Isaiah 8:23-9:1 and though under close scrutiny elements of this reference are hard to understand the general tone is quite clear. In Isaiah’s time this Northern part of Israel was conquered by Assyria and this passage looked forward to a day of deliverance for this region that had walked away from God’s path.

This metaphor of walking is important not simply because it is mentioned in the paraphrase of Isaiah but because it stands behind the Hebrew concept of repentance. Matthew tells us that Jesus frames his ministry around two aspects, repentance, and the kingdom of heaven. Today the word repentance can carry a lot of religious baggage and I even see a growing number of Christians who are uncomfortable with the term because of how it has been used within their churches. Many seem to think of repentance as an act of groveling before God and even our dictionary definition renders it in terms of expressing “regret and remorse”. Though there can be elements of regret and remorse involved in the repentance Jesus discusses (elsewhere he implies that regret and restitution to others is part of repentance), this is not the primary meaning of what Jesus is calling for. The word Jesus uses in 4:17 is about changing one’s self, not simply having a change of mind or of feelings but changing one’s entire orientation. Such a change does not inherently imply guilt, though it could, but it does require a person to recognize how their actions are fundamentally misaligned. The Hebrew word for repentance formed Jesus’ ideas has to do with turning one’s direction while walking- recognizing I am walking down the wrong path and making the change to the right path. In this way repentance is like a person who is alone in the wilderness looking at a map and compass and recognizing they need to make a course correction if they are going to reach their destination. Jesus as we say, “came to seek and save the lost” that is he came to provide new direction to the world, he came to provide a clearer map and a more accurate compass.

When Jesus follows his call to repentance with “the kingdom of heaven is near” he is providing us with the both the end point and the compass for us to help us orient ourselves as we navigate the world. Jesus’ message is that repentance is orienting one’s self toward the kingdom of heaven which has arrived on earth in his message. I find understanding what the kingdom of heaven is when we recognize the language of 6:10 “your kingdom come, your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven”, here God’s will is directly connected to God’s kingdom. This means that though we usually understand “kingdom” to mean a geographical territory controlled by a monarch, Jesus means it as a place where God’s will is accomplished. The kingdom of heaven is thus God’s reign displayed through an individual committed to furthering God’s will in their life. Jesus’ message to the world then was “change your orientation in such a way that you fundamentally reflect God’s will into this world.” Jesus’ work was not about simply getting people to acknowledge sin plead for forgiveness (though there is a time and a place for such activities) Jesus’ message goes further. Jesus wanted people to recognize that they were wandering lost in the wilderness, whether through their own negligence or through life’s circumstances and now he had arrived and was ready to help them navigate their way home.

It is against this setting that Jesus will give the Sermon on the Mount, providing us with the map of a life of repentance. When we want to know what it means to repent, we are to look to Matthew 5-7 for our answers; a life of repentance is synonymous with a life that reflects the Sermon on the Mount.

Takeaway

When I think Jesus’ ministry, I should think of changing the direction of my life to orient my walk with God’s reign.